Jack's Wonderful Life
by Rose Stetson
Summary: A Christmas party with SG1 leads Jack to do some thinking...or dreaming.
1. Movie Night

**Jack's Wonderful Life**

_I know it's a little late (or early...he he he) for Christmas fics...but it's only been a couple weeks since Christmas...so this is for all of you who don't mind leaving your Christmas decorations up for another few weeks after the New Year (a.k.a. my mother and me)

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"I am NOT going to watch It's A Wonderful Life!" Jack insisted.

"But, sir, it's a classic!" Sam retorted.

"Then watch it on your own time, in your own house, on your own couch!" Jack retorted.

"Sir, we are at my house...you're sitting on my couch." She reminded him.

"She is correct, O'Neill."

"Gotta go with Teal'c and Sam on this one, Jack." Daniel added.

"Fine...but I don't have to be happy about it."

"What do you have against it?" Sam asked.

"The whole movie tells the audience what a great guy George Bailey is, he almost kills himself, wishes he'd never been born, gets his wish, realizes it was a big mistake, and everything is hunky-dorie!"

"Hunky-dorie, sir?"

"Yes..." Jack replied. "And that's the technical term!"

"Wow, you are getting to be a crochety old man." Daniel observed.

"Oh, shut up, Spacemonkey!"

"Hey!"

"Sir, we don't have to watch It's a Wonderful Life. We could watch A Christmas Carol or Miracle on 34th Street." Sam offered.

"Nope...those are even worse!"

"Colonel, it's the unofficial SG-1 Christmas party. What were you expecting? Mission:Impossible?"

"Hey now!" Jack warned.

"I'm sorry, sir...I just...I happen to love sappy Christmas movies."

"Besides, the only thing that makes George Bailey's life 'hunky-dorie' at the end is his change in perspective." Daniel added.

"Yeah, well...start the movie already."

_'Course, it's easy to change your perspective if you life affected others' for good,_ he thought. _I mean, if you were someone like Carter or Daniel or Teal'c...that's easy, but me? Cranky old me?_

Within minutes, Jack O'Neill fell into a less than fitful rest.


	2. Subconscious Minds Think Alike

He awoke in the Gate Room to find Oma Desala on the ramp. "Oh, great. Oma! One of my favorite people!"

She smiled. "Colonel O'Neill. A pleasure as always."

"So, I'm dead." Jack replied after a moment of looking around.

"Not exactly. However, you do not find meaning in your life, therefore you are no better off than dead." She replied, smoothly.

"Yeah, well, thanks for the chat, but aren't you kind of interfering?"

"No. I am simply a personification of your subconscious mind."

"In English, please."

"I am not who I appear to be. Your mind has given me this form, therefore I am here as I am."

"So if you are...me, why are you...am I, using words like personification and subconscious?" Jack asked, throwing down the "trump card."

"Because you are only successful in hiding the magnitude of your intelligence from those who watch you at a distance."

"You mean like Carter, Daniel and Teal'c?" He asked, coolly.

"Much farther removed."

"Really?" He asked.

The Stargate activated, and Oma looked from the event horizon to Jack.

"So you're not going to turn me into a glowing jellyfish thingy?"

"No."

"Great. Just as long as the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future don't visit me tonight, I'm good." He added, spitefully.

"No, but we will visit a few alternate realities..."

"Through the Stargate? I thought that was the mirror thingy's job."

"In dreams, it mattereth not." She said, softly. "Come."

He followed her to the event horizon and he appeared on the planet SG-1 had just been to. _How sad is it that the first thing that you did to change the future happened less than 24 hours ago?_ He thought to himself.

"Watch."

He immediately saw Daniel race toward the DHD followed by Teal'c and Sam. They were under enemy fire. Jack's breath caught. "Where am I?"

"What difference does it make? You would only stand in the way of their success." She replied, calmly.

"But Carter...she's..." He couldn't describe her effectively. To say that she had changed would be an understatement. She was like a living, breathing GI Joe, expressionless and tough.

A twig snapped beside him and he turned to face a Jaffa. It was the Jaffa that he had shot!

The warrior took aim.

"Carter!" Jack yelled.

There was no response. Jack looked from Sam to the Jaffa. He stood in the line of fire. The blast ripped past him, catching Carter in the back. He turned in time to see her crumple to the ground. With Carter gone, the Jaffa she had been fighting took aim at Daniel who had just finished inputting the coordinates. "Sam! Teal'c!" He yelled, turning.

A staff weapon fired, catching him squarely in the chest.

Teal'c continued to fight his opponents, but ultimately, he was caught in the back by the blast from a staff weapon.

Jack just stared. His whole team was dead just because he hadn't been there to watch Carter's back?


	3. Sam and Pete

The scene dissolved back into the Gate Room. "What happened?" Jack managed.

Oma looked compassionately at Jack. "You saved Samantha's life, who in turn saved Daniel's life, who saved Teal'c's life."

"No, I mean…"

"To Samantha?" She asked.

He nodded, still in a form of shock.

"You helped her to keep a part of herself feminine."

He just stared at her. "And how did I do that?"

"After your encounter in the briefing room when you met, and your following encounter with the goa'uld Hathor, she felt that you began to encourage her femininity as long as it didn't interfere with your missions."

"How?"

"Are you forgetting the playful flirting that occurs when you are together?"

"Flirting?"

"Yes, Colonel. You can try to fool others into thinking that your relationship with Samantha is no different than your friendships with Daniel and Teal'c. However, you cannot deceive yourself."

"Try?"

"As we speak, there are a number of your co-workers who are pleading with the President on your behalf."

"My behalf?" He asked.

"Yours and Samantha's. They are requesting that the regulations that have kept you apart for so long may be suspended."

"Well, that's very nice of them, but Carter's dating someone right now."

"Is she truly happy with him?"

"Huh?"

The Stargate activated once more.

He walked through and found himself in a small café. There was Sam. She had just gotten her coffee from the vendor and went to sit at a table. Then, a man came up to her. They flirted and kissed, and Jack thought he was going to be sick. To watch HIS Samantha…no, to watch his second-in-command all over someone else…

Almost immediately, it dissolved into the corridors of the SGC. "What is this all about?"

"Just watch, and you'll see."

The elevator door opened and he stood inside as Sam walked in. He remembered the occasion very well. She started humming. But as he watched the proceedings carefully, he could see an uncertainty in her eyes. A question of what was the right thing.

It hadn't been there when he hadn't been around.

"Now, you need to see what she was thinking about." Oma quipped as 'he' stepped out of the elevator, and they faded into what seemed to be the Prometheus.

"Why are we here?"

Sam was sitting with her knees up against her chest, on the floor. And he was sitting across from her.

"I don't remember this." Jack said, studying the scene.

"She had a very similar experience as you are having now." Oma replied.

_"What if I quit the Air Force? Would that change anything or is it just an excuse?" She asked._

_"I would never ask you to give up your career." The other him replied._

_"Because you don't feel anything for me?"_

_"Carter." He said, threateningly._

_"I'd let you go right now if I knew." She insisted._

_"That easy?" He said, scrupulously._

_"I didn't say it would be easy." She admitted._

_"Then what's stopping you if you really wanna know?"_

_"I'm trying."_

_"Maybe it's not me that's the problem here. Let's face it, I'm not that complex." He said, chuckling._

Jack smiled. How true was that?

_"Me?" She barely squeaked._

"Sam. I'm a safe bet." Jack breathed alongside his hallucinated counter-part.

They returned to the Gate Room. "What would happen if…?"

Oma activated the Stargate again.

Again, Jack went through. This time, he found himself in the living room of Samantha's house.

_"Sam, I want you to leave."_

_"You want me to leave?" She asked, incredulously._

_"Sam, your work…it's too dangerous. I found that out when I followed you."_

_"YOU FOLLOWED ME?" Sam yelled._

_"What? You weren't telling me anything…and the background check didn't show anything…"_

_She looked livid. "Dammit, Pete. Don't you think you could at least trust me?"_

_"Can't you trust me?" He asked._

_She slapped him. "I told you. I can't tell anyone unless they've been given clearance. But no…you had to follow me, get injured so that you would be able to prey upon my sympathies, and then, I had to tell you the whole damn truth!"_

_"Sam! That's not fair." Pete insisted._

_"Get out of my house." She said, throwing the engagement ring at him. "You make me sick!"_

_"Come on, Sam…I won't do it again."_

She opened the door and shoved him through it. Then, after she closed the door, she leaned against it. In a moment of despair, she slid down to the floor, leaning her head against her knees with tears running down her cheeks.

Jack looked at the picture on the wall. It was similar to the one that they had taken only a few weeks earlier, but he wasn't in it.

"Is she upset because I…?"

Oma nodded. "You died after saving Earth. And consequently broke her heart."


End file.
